Recommendation 12

In our October 2025 oral evidence session, the Department highlighted that there was never an economic model that said the length of the first meeting should be 50 rather than 30 minutes. It also emphasised that there was flexibility in the system, for example to allow for initial meetings to be extended or for subsequent meetings to be arranged. The Accounting Officer recounted a recent visit to a jobcentre where he had seen a work coach extend an initial meeting to 40 minutes, knowing that their next customer had not arrived. Had the next customer been waiting, the work coach had said they would have decided whether the conversation needed to be continued there and then, and asked a colleague to take their next appointment if needed, or rebooked the first customer for another appointment if not. The Department also noted that the claimant commitment meeting was the start of a process–that meeting was followed by weekly meetings for claimants in the Intensive Work Search category for the first 13 weeks of their claim, so the conversations could continue.19 Transparency of local jobcentre performance